Sixers' Carter-Williams credits Brown's tenacity for tighter bond

Sixers coach Brett Brown, right, directs Michael Carter-Williams, left, during a game against Milwaukee. Brown and Carter-Williams came out of a 19-63 season with their relationship strengthened. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)

PHILADELPHIA — The list of thank-yous read by Michael Carter-Williams was getting lengthy, to the point that he accidentally omitted his agent from it.

Then, the league’s Rookie of the Year award recipient parceled out a sliver of time at the podium to thank his coach. And Carter-Williams couldn’t stop gushing.

Carter-Williams was the best, per the results of a media vote, of a rookie class that’s widely regarded as average. His game has flaws, and — during a 63-loss season — 76ers coach Brett Brown occasionally addressed them. That, for Carter-Williams, wasn’t always welcomed — but it was always necessary.

The 22-year-old point guard made sure to lavish praise upon Brown, the Sixers’ first-year coach with whom he has forged a critical partnership. On the surface, the two met eye to eye almost always throughout a trying campaign. Then, there was that game in March at Oklahoma City … where Carter-Williams got beat to the bucket almost too easily by the Thunder’s Jeremy Lamb.

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Months afterward, the fact that Carter-Williams and Brown were able to joke about the verbal exchange, which at the time featured the rookie turning his back to his coach, speaks to the good nature of their burgeoning rapport.

“During the games, especially the Oklahoma City game, we had it out a little bit,” Carter-Williams said Monday, during his Rookie of the Year award ceremony at PCOM. “I think that made our relationship even closer. And I think that brought a lot out of me.”

Moving forward, beyond this season, the bond between Carter-Williams and Brown will be critical. The Sixers have few guaranteed, proven entities that will carry over to next season. Carter-Williams is one of them. The holders of seven picks for June’s draft, the Sixers will have a bevy of new bodies entering the equation. They’ll be in need of someone to bind them together.

That responsibility falls on Carter-Williams.

At the team’s breakup day following the Sixers’ season finale, Brown compared Carter-Williams to the student in the classroom who’s charged with passing notes to the rest of his classmates, making sure that the message gets passed down from one man to the next.

So maybe their run-in in Oklahoma City had its merits, tethering together a first-year coach and a first-year player who are in it for the long haul.

“I get stuck into him at Oklahoma City and say, ‘Michael, you have to play better defense. You have to keep the game in front of you,’” Brown said, “and through all of those situations, I see the evolution in a point guard being born. He allowed the coaching staff to coach him.

“Everybody seemed to make something out of it, and I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. I don’t think he did either. … For me, it was a borderline defining moment of us each saying, ‘This is how it’s going to work and we moved on.’ At the end of the day, he’s my point guard and I’m with him. I’ll do whatever I can to help him move forward.”

Addressing the moving-forward element of Brown’s comments, Carter-Williams’ attainable goals for next season include improving the point guard’s shooting percentage, which ranked 121st out of 124 players who qualified in that category. And, as one might imagine, his defense.

“In the beginning of the year, I’m thinking I’m playing good defense,” Carter-Williams said. “It’s like, ‘Coach, I’m leading the league in steals. How can I play any better defense?’ But we’re going through the tape and watching film. Those times where I did get broken down on defense and I need to do a lot of things — I took it personally. I’ll do anything in my power to get better on defense.”